Absolute Beginners
by nezstereo
Summary: After a rather embarassing post-earthquake meltdown, Miles and Franziska have a brief talk. Mild Miles/Franziska, set in the last trial of T&T.


AN: Hurr, I am once again addicted to Phoenix Wright, and am thus obsessed with Franziska/Miles. This will probably develop into a series of oneshots, but for now, it stands alone.

It also takes place directly after the whole earthquake thing in Trials and Tribulations.

By the way, the title is from a David Bowie song of the same name, although honestly, it isn't all that great of a song. But I love Bowie nonetheless, and it fits the story well.

Enjoy!

"Miles."

He was too distracted to hear her voice, despite its familiar and jarring tone; he was too busy wallowing in self-admitted, self-administered pity, and so, he does not reply.

Franziska rests a hand upon his shoulder, then squeezes hard, making him jump.

"Ow!" He whirls about, wincing.

She smiles wickedly, and he's suddenly reminded of a time when they were children.

_"Franziska! Stop pinching me!"_

_"Why?"_

_"It hurts!"_

_"Why"_

_"I don't know!"_

_"But WHY, Miles Edgeworth?"_

His heart is still pounding from the shock of the earth moving beneath him, the loss of gravity, the feeling of being plucked up from comfort and shaken like a bug in a small boy's glass jar.

The pain in his shoulder doesn't help, but it does awaken him to the cold, and to the prescence of the girl (no, woman, he corrects himself, eyes drifting almost against his will to her hips, her legs...) in front of him.

He begins to open his mouth, to apologize for ignoring her, but he stops when she pushes him down onto the steps of the Inner Temple, face full of a barely-masked concern.

"Still shaking," she tsks, noting his trembling hands, his heaving chest, smoothing an errant lock of hair from his face as if it's an afterthought. But she seems not to notice his flushed face, the way his eyes neglect to meet hers, his attempts to shy away from her touch more out of fear of her feeling his thumping heart than out of wounded pride.

Miles thanks the fates for once for giving Franziska a very poor ability to read his emotions, finally slumping once he sits down.

She perches beside him, gazing at him demurely, offering him no words of consolation as if somehow, she realizes his need for space between them, assuming he does not want any fussing. She cannot possibly know that he needs the space because she makes him uncomfortably warm, that if she had wrapped her arms about his neck and whispered into his ear that everything would be alright, he might just about die, and never be able to focus the rest of the day. She can't possibly comprehend the notion that if she were to lay her head upon his shoulder, it would be like a thousand earthquakes, a thousand shivers and shifts in his body's perfect balance, a million cracks in his facade.

Suddenly, she blurts out, "I got a cat."

He is shaken out of his reverie easier this time, and he leans back his head to look at her, a woman now, sitting on the railing that surrounds the porch of the Inner Temple building.

Pale-skinned, with the icy blue eyes and matching sub-zero smirk, Franziska reminds him of a play he read when he was young, about an Ice Queen who carried children away to her palace of snow...

Hazakura Temple is beautiful, even he admits, despite their being in a garden where a woman has been killed, despite everything.

"You got a cat?" He repeats.

"Yes."

"Why?"

She frowns. "I don't really know. He was on my windowsill one morning, and I fed him some leftover fish...He's a stray, I'm sure, so I just...decided to keep him."

"Well," Miles begins, pondering what to say. "That's...that's good. I mean, that's nice."

"Yes," she replies, not knowing what else to say. "It is, actually. More than I had thought it would be. Especially...especially now that it's winter. He sleeps on my feet, so I'm never cold."  
"Oh," he says. "Yes. Cats are good for that."

"Mmm."

A silence between them, the finished product of years of separation, years of growing up alone, each one sure the other hated them. A processed, terrible silence, made worse by the memory of last year, her hot, shameful tears, and his stiff, discomforting hug at the airport. A series of horrid goodbyes.

"Miles," she interjects.

"Franziska," he retorts, repeating her name in a condescending tone, a game they used to play when they were children.

Smiling, seeming to remember this memory, Franziska sighs, and slides down next to him, eyeing him cautiously. He can't think with her so close, can't force himself to move away.

She's like the eye of a storm.

"You look awful," she tells him.

"I feel awful," Miles manages to choke out. "I mean, the earthquake--"

"--Was not your fault," she snaps. "You cannot control the environment, Miles."

_Miles._

It sounds nice, to hear her call him that again. No last name, no stiff formality in her tone.

"It's silly," he mutters. "Getting all worked up over a little shaking, heh."

The laugh hangs between them as he runs a hand through his hair, turning his head, accidentally catching her eyes and feeling his stomach sink. She's returning his stare in full, with a strange look, as if she's trying her damnedest to figure out what he's thinking, an almost affectionate sort of _what am I going to do with you? _glance.

They pause, as frozen as the water in the tiny garden's pond, and their hearts beat in tandem, unbeknownst

to one another.

Franziska is first to break away, tittering nervously, brushing non-existent dust off her skirt, composing herself. Her brow furrows in confusion, perplexed at the feeling looking into his eyes has evoked within her. Almost a strange sense of...affection?

Banishing such a thought for later, when this is over, she turns to her wayward "little brother".

Miles is frowning as well, although, it is for another reason entirely. He can't stand to let her see him so out of sorts, can't stand the thought of any kind of pity, even from her.

She leans in close to him, until their foreheads touch, hands on his shoulders, gently this time.

"Don't beat yourself up about it," she whispers. "You worry too much."

And then, Franziska kisses him on the cheek, a flickering movement that he would barely register if not for the contrast of her warm lips against his cold skin, a product of winter's chill.

She saunters off and past the gate, turning only once to glance back at him, looking as anxious as he feels.

He stays on the porch for a minute more, staring at the snow on the ground, the imprint of her heels in the white canvas, the scene of the crime itself, graceful and foreboding, full of all those unspoken implications (_someone died here_) and all its quaint loveliness.

Miles Edgeworth laughs softly, his breath coming out in a puff of condensation.

There was something wonderful about the sight of the untouched snow near the garden pond, something beautiful, like two people just starting out, exchanging glances, excited at the

endless

possibilities.

* * *

AN: Voila! What did you think? I personally am rather proud of it.


End file.
